The Moment

3|17|09: Seattle

Newspapers used to die all the time, and nobody thought a thing about it because other newspapers were being born. The law of the jungle is brutal but not particularly sad. Somewhere around the time television got big, though, the newspaper birthrate fell close to zero; after that, every death was one step closer to extinction. You see the difference in the history of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Its 146-year life span is a tale of dead start-ups, relaunches, mergers, fierce competition--all bloody and robust and healthy. Now the P-I is gone but for a skeleton crew of Web producers and opinion...

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